Checkmate
by Lost In Rotation
Summary: Truths are hard to confess when you find them hard to believe yourself. Spoilers for the season three finale. Walt L., Lucian C., Branch C., Barlow C.


As was the case with most of his movements recently, Walt took his time as he studied the board laid out before him. It had been a while since he'd played, and he wasn't in the best state of mind for a task that required so much attention to detail. Chess was not a game to be taken lightly, especially not when facing the opponent in question. Pride was on the line, if nothing else. And this visit in particular did not fall in the realm of ordinary circumstances.

This fact was made evident by the shear amount of restraint his opponent showed. Normally, there would be leg jostling by this point in the interim. Perhaps even a hand drumming out an irritated and impatient beat against the edge of the rickety table. But on this day, his opponent did nothing but lean back in his chair, cross his arms over his chest, and wait.

The minutes stretched on as the silence slowly descended upon them like a blanket over their shoulders. Walt's attention moved from one piece to the next, his index finger even off balancing a few as he tilted them in thought, but still he made no progress across the board. When his companion finally reacted to the delay in the game, it was not in the way Walt expected. He figured Lucian would react with loud, rough words and a demand of getting on with it. Instead, with a swift swipe of his arm, the retired former sheriff knocked each and every piece off the floor with one clean swoop of his arm. Stunned by the motion, Walt did not attempt to collect any of the pieces as they tumbled noisily to the ground, clattering against the dirty carpet and rolling away.

He shouldn't have been surprised. This was, after all, the same man that shot off two - no, it was three - rounds of his shotgun in this very room when he wanted to get the attention of the retirement home staff. He had a flair for the dramatic, something that could also be said for his nephew.

"Cut the shit," Lucian pressed, leaning forward now in his seat instead of back. He moved in, leaning across the table and the discarded board, perching his elbows on the stained wood surface. "We both know you ain't here to play chess today, Sheriff."

Walt rubbed the growing stubble on his cheeks, leaning back in his own chair to restore a safe amount of distance between the two. In truth, he wasn't sure why he had decided to come. Lucian had never been a friend. A colleague for a while, sure, but never a confidant. His relationship on the job with Lucian had been perhaps even more turbulent that his current relationship with Branch, and that even considered the fact that Branch had slept with his daughter and lied about it.

In truth, Branch was the reason he was here now. Walt felt the news would be better coming from himself if Lucian hadn't heard through the grapevine already. He wanted to act detached from the situation, giving the man sitting across him the news as the county sheriff, not a friend. Even if it struck him just as deep to the core. It was personal to him as well though, of course, the revelations he'd found out over the past forty-eight hours. Just thinking about it made Walt want to seize the edge of the table and grip it until the wood buckled under the pressure. Anything to release the pent up anger he was having difficulty hiding. But, for the moment, he had to keep it together.

He remembered the conversation he'd had with Lucian, that week of the retirement home incident. It hung fresh in his memory now, what Lucian had said about his brother and his nephew. Remembered all too vividly how Lucian had said his brother was a son of a bitch who would do anything to see a badge on his son. He couldn't have known about this. Not even the most jaded of people could foretell the way this tale unraveled.

It had taken Lucian over an hour to finally get fed up with Walt and call him on his bluff as to the purpose of his visit. So Walt took a few more minutes to muster his strength before the words tumbled from his mouth, gruff and disbelieving still, though he knew they were the truth; knew it to the deepest, most closed off crevasses of his heart.

He had spent years thinking he would find absolution in this truth. The pain would never leave him, just as his wife never truly would. But he at least expected... something. Some kind of release of the anger and grief that had driven him for so long. It gave him nothing, left him reeling with more questions than answers. His history with the Connally's was a rocky one to be sure, but he never could have imagined it ran this deep.

Lucian's anger did not simmer as Walt's did. The older man released his frustration swiftly, showing strength Walt was surprised he still had in his old age as he overturned the table. The chess board joined the discarded pieces on the ground, and neither made a move to collect any of it. No words followed, for there was nothing that could be said to placate the moment. So they continued to sit there, across from each other, staring at each other but neither seeing.

Walt did not have the heart to mention the nephew in critical condition at the hospital. That news would come soon enough. He did not mention how he had found Lucian's brother still hovering over his own son, shotgun in hand, a vacant expression on his eyes. He spoke nothing of the after, only of the 'it'. The details would come later, when Walt had had time to process everything and try to make sense of it himself. For this evening, they simply sat there with the truths weighing them down, crushing their spirits and hearts, both losers in this game of chess that life had rigged.


End file.
